Cruel World
by kgbsprite
Summary: g8 title m8 i r8 8/8 but yeah its a good WIP that is going to include !character death!, sadness, endgame Klance, evil Lotor, sadness, little bit of !gore!, sadness, typos, and did i mention sADNESS plz plz plz read and review i beg of you child/adult/teen/elder/infant
1. Chapter 1

Lance gasped.

He looked down at the sword through his chest that was covered in blood.

 _His_ blood.

"I am truly sorry." Lotor whispered into Lance's ear. "But you must understand, I can't leave without gaining something. That would be..." He twisted the sword, tearing a cry a pain from him. "Wasteful."

The prince pulled the dirtied blade out of Lance's body. Lance fell to his knees, arms falling limply at his sides. His mind was racing and his heart was pounding, but with each passing second, he could feel both slow down.

The world moved in slow motion.

He saw his teammates running to him, eyes filled with shock and horror.

He heard Keith's desperate yell, Hunk's painful sobs, and Shiro's sickened silence.

He felt Keith wrap his arms around his cold body and Pidge's hot tears fall on his face.

And for a moment…

He could remember the smell of his mom's cooking. The scent of his abuela's always-too-strong perfume. The stinky Garrison locker room. Fresh earth after a rainy day. The salty ocean breeze. _Earth_.

Suddenly, tears flooded down his face, and the only thought that he could make out in the fuzzy darkness of his brain came out in a quiet, cracked voice.

"Not yet. Please."

Two deep and sorrowful purrs rumbled through Lance's mind. Lance could feel the Red Lion growling desperately at the unfairness of it all, and could feel the Blue Lion cry with him about all that was lost. They both rang a loud, mournful message together to him.

" _You matter so much. You have always been kind, helpful, brave, and smart, and no one has ever thought anything other than that. You will always be remembered. You will never be replaced. Now please. Be at peace."_

And he was at peace. The pain in his body faded away, as well as the pain in his mind. He closed his eyes and slowly…

Drifted away.

 **A/N: well, that was angsty but good. I will be continuing this as an angsty fic, in which i will progressively make you suffer more and more with each chapter, so i hope you enjoyed your happiness while you had it, because it's gone now. Go read a fluffy fanfic to make you feel better, but not before you make sure to like/review/follow. (hint: do all of these for extra credit in karma. It makes me feel better about myself) until next time, my angsty victims!**

 **~kgbsprite**


	2. Chapter 2

There was light. Everything was light.

Lance couldn't feel or hear anything. All he could see was the light.

A thought entered his mind. One that wasn't his own, but a thought that felt familiar.

" _Greetings Lance."_ the thought began, " _Do you know where you are?"_

Lance was confused. Right now, the only thing that he could remember was his name. He tried to speak, but couldn't. He tried to move any part of his body, but he couldn't see or feel himself. There was nothing where his hands would be, nor were any of his other limbs. It was like he was in some weird, confusing dream that he couldn't wake up from.

" _We understand your confusion, and it may help if we give you a little context as to what is happening right now. You do not have a body right now because the only things that exists in you are your thoughts and soul. You can imagine a body, if that makes you feel more comfortable."_

He didn't understand what was going on, but he obeyed the thought. He imagined his hands and his feet and his face, and one by one, they appeared out of thin air, constructing his body like puzzle pieces. As his ears formed, he could hear a faint tinkling sound, quiet and muffled. His nose brought the scent of cool air, and his tongue brought the taste of it. Finally, he shielded his eyes from what he thought would be a blinding light, but as he slowly opened his eyes, he saw-

His breath caught.

He saw the darkness of space, littered with small, shining, colorful stars. Everywhere he looked, there were stars. It was like a galaxy. Some flew across the void, some staying clustered together, and each one twinkling brightly, every pulse making that muffled tinkling noise he heard earlier. It was breathtakingly beautiful, magnificent, wondrous, and he just couldn't look away.

Suddenly, his wonder came to a halt. Logic told him that sound doesn't travel in space, yet still the stars hummed with their tiny chimes, and as he looked down at his feet, he realized that he was standing on top of nothing, which was impossible.

"Where am I?" he asked, whipping around to try to see who had spoken to him before, but finding nothing. A rising feeling of anxiety grew within him for a reason he couldn't explain.

All the stars seemed to take a deep breath, before speaking in a disembodied voice together.

" _Lance… this is not a dream. We call this place the Home of the Guiding Stars. We are here navigate and help you through... your death."_

Lance froze.

There was brief moment of complete silence and stillness. It was the suffocating calm before the storm. But then-

Everything. Came. Back.

His joy. His sorrow. His comfort. His pain. His friends. His enemies. His life. _His... death_.

It was a raging hurricane of emotions and pain that flung Lance around like he was a doll. Lance's legs trembled and collapsed underneath him. His breathing quickened as he wrapped his arms around himself, as if trying hold it all pain of losing everything in his life was drowning him, and he was dying again. Again.

He was dead.

He was dead.

 _He was dead._

His whole fake, imagined body that _didn't exist_ shook violently and his thoughts came to him only in fragments.

" _I want my friends- I'm all alone- I lost them all- I'll never see my family- I can't be dead- I failed them all- It's only a dream- It's all my fault- I want to go back I want to go back I WANT TO GO BACK-"_

He rocked back and forth until the floodgate of pain broke and all he could do was scream. He sobbed and screamed at everything because it was all so GODDAMN UNFAIR.

…

He didn't know what to do. It was all pointless now.

But…

He didn't want this. He refused to let this be the end. He had to go back. Somehow. Someway.

He wouldn't give up yet.

"Lance."

Lance looked up with a jolt, recognizing the familiar voice that had been with him since the day he left Earth.

"Blue?" he asked, unsure if he was really hearing the lion's true voice or if he was imagining things.

"Yes, my paladin. I am here." A cluster of blue, floating lights gathered in front of the Cuban boy, and encompassed him with a warm and comforting feeling. Lance sighed.

"What am I gonna do now, Blue? You have to help me get back there." he said.

The lights chuckled. "Do not fret, cub. There is much for you to settle before you begin again."

Lance's eyes widened. "You're serious? I can really live again?"

A sorrowful feeling pulsed from the glowing orbs. "No. You will never truly live again." Immediately, Lance's hopeful feeling dampened. "But you mustn't focus on that." Lance brightened again. "You have unfinished business, which means, until you resolve your issues, you cannot move on."

"Wait, what? This isn't it?" Lance was spun into a feeling of confusion. "This isn't heaven? Or hell, or, whatever the end is? Am I in purgatory? Holy crow, am I a ghost?!" He pulled his hair and paced back and forth. "What is going on, Blue?"

"Stars above, Lance, calm down." Lance recognized the sharp, impatient voice of Red. A cluster of stars similar to Blue's gathered beside the lights already in front of him. "Blue, no offense, but you take too long to explain stuff." The lion grumbled quietly, but let Red continue.

"Lance, I'll make this as quick as possible. You're going to go back to your life as a Flicker, which is what your kind calls a ghost. You've got some problems, so you can't move on until you fix them." Lance opened his mouth to ask a question, but was cut off. "And before you ask, no, we can't tell you what your issues are. If we could, we wouldn't be here, now would we?" He snapped his mouth shut. "You're gonna have to figure out how to talk to the living by yourself."

"Come on, Red, you can't just leave him with nothing like that!"

"Watch me."

Blue snarled something that sounded like the lion equivalent of a swear word, then focused on Lance again.

"Ignore that. Just imagine if you were bonding with me or Red." Lance tried to imagine connecting with the team like he did with the lions, but it just didn't click. "I don't get it. I can't talk to them, so how am I supposed to bond with them?"

Blue sighed. "I can't explain it. You'll have to figure it out yourself."

"Literally what I just sai-" "Shut it, cherry bomb." Blue interrupted. Lance snorted.

Red growled. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with so we can be out of here faster." Blue silently agreed, and they both positioned themselves around the boy. Lance shifted from foot to foot and chewed his lip nervously.

"Close your eyes, Lance."

 **A/N: owo lonce is a ghosty ghost**

 **sorry i haven't updated this in a while, i want this to be good, and i got someone to beta it for me, so it should hopefully be better than if i was doing it alone. i also have a pretty nice endgame too, so i'm hoping i can execute that well**

 **thanks for reading, if you could leave a review to tell me how to improve it, that would be fantastic. i still am kind of unconfident (thats a word, right?) about my writing, so any constructive criticism would be immensely appreciated :'))))**


	3. Chapter 3

Keith raced down the hallways of the castleship, chasing Lotor. Lance had taken a different route in front of the rest of the team to cut Lotor off and trap him. Keith was the fastest, so he led the group's chase.

" _So Lance was right all along."_ Keith thought bitterly. A few quintents ago, Lance had secretly contacted Keith to tell him about the situation that was Lotor. Even though he had gone with Allura to Oriande, and gotten the so-called Mark of the Chosen, Lance was still untrusting of the prince, now emperor. He had told Keith that the rest of the team ignored and put down his suspicions, and Keith was close to doing the same, until Lance told him about Lotor's recent unusual behavior.

Lotor had been vigorously pushing Allura to record the data and knowledge she had learned from Oriande, but also convincing her to keep it private. The whole team of Voltron thought that it was a good idea, but Lance had smelled something fishy. Lotor and Allura were going on private missions to ancient Altean ruins and to places of Altean legend, most often at Lotor's suggestion. It made sense, since they were the only two Chosen Alteans on their side of the fight, but even after their missions, Lotor occupied most of the princess's time, to the point that Allura only spent time with the other paladins when they were convincing a new planet to join the coalition or at mealtimes. Even then, Lotor was ever present, never leaving her side for more than tick or so. Allura was wrapped around Lotor's thumb, but no one seemed to realize it except Lance. Little by little, the collection of Altean alchemy grew, with no one but Lotor and the princess herself knowing the full extent of it. Lance was getting increasingly anxious, so he suggested that they protect the knowledge with some sort of lock and alarm that only Allura knew, just in case anyone of malcontent decided they wanted to use it for themselves. The team had agreed, and though Lotor remained silent, he had cast an unsettling glare towards Lance the entire meeting. They were setting up the protection for the data in two quintents, and lately, Lance had been finding himself with unexplainable reasons for the team to hate him, like when he lost his bayard and the team had to spend a whole day looking for it instead of going to a coalition meeting. He had sworn that he had it with his armor, but it had disappeared by the time he opened it in the morning. The first place he had checked was his bedroom, but when Shiro came to look in his bedroom at the end of the day, it had strangely reappeared. Lance was certain there was some foul-play involved.

Keith was never one to trust easily, and the longer Lance had gone on, the more Keith wanted to get over to the castleship to keep an eye on Lotor. Keith had gone to Kolivan and asked if he could visit the Castle of Lions on business that might affect the safety of Voltron. Kolivan dismissed the idea at first, saying that Keith was just trying to avoid his mother.

Keith winced now just to think about it. That might have been half-true, but he refused and said it was for the sake of the coalition that he go. Eventually, the Marmoran leader let him leave, but suggested that he also pack all of his things, as he might not be welcome back. Too many instances had Keith put his emotions before the mission, and the situation didn't seem to be improving. Keith had huffed and grabbed his few things from the bed that the Blade of Marmora provided. As he got on his ship to leave, he looked back at the base, but immediately regretted it. He saw his mother walking by in the distance, and as she turned to grab something, she caught sight of her son, leaving in a ship, with all his things packed. They locked eyes for a moment, but Keith couldn't hold her sorrowful gaze and broke away. The ship loading door rolled up, and as soon as it closed, both mother and son wiped pricks of tears from their eyes.

After arriving at the Castle, Keith could barely comprehend how much had changed. Shiro and Allura greeted Keith with cold glares, while Lotor looked on with gritted teeth and a calculating expression. Hunk did his best as peacemaker, bless him, explaining why everyone else was upset with Keith. Apparently, Shiro was angry because he thought that Keith needed to figure out where his loyalties lied, instead of bouncing back and forth between Voltron and the Blade of Marmora, expecting to always be welcomed back. Allura was mad because she thought Keith was being selfish by abandoning the team when he did, even though at the time, the team was practically begging him to leave. Honestly, Keith was beginning to regret coming back.

Hunk tried to fill him in on all he had missed, not knowing how much Lance had already told him. After settling into his old bunk, Lance had stayed a little while after to talk about the strange changes in the team, repeating some of what he said when he had first contacted him. After that, it seemed like he relaxed a little. From the sound of it, that was the first time in a while that Lance had actually talked to someone. Keith did his best to comfort him, but even though it seemed like a bit of Lance's stress was gone, Keith could tell that a lot more was bubbling underneath.

The next morning, they had taken turns helping Pidge with the defense system and making sure that Lotor couldn't spend time observing any flaws in the mechanism. By the end of the quintent, the system had been completed, alarms and everything. When Pidge had left the room, Lance suggested to Keith that they should make a secret alarm, as a last defense. Keith agreed, and together they had built a last obstacle, similar to the trap in Indiana Jones (a movie Keith had never heard of, but was told to "just look it up"). Then they placed the knowledge container on it, replaced what they had taken down, and engaged the defenses. Then, they waited for Lotor to make his move.

That led to now, when the alarm system went off. Lotor sprinted out of the alchemy room with all the recorded knowledge in hand, and his sword in the other. Lance had been pacing the hallways in anxiousness, so he was the first to be aware of the blaring alarm.

"I've got Lotor running to you, if you hurry you can trap him!" Lance's voice crackled over the com.

No one responded, too focused and out of breath to speak, but Keith sped up and called back, "I'm rounding the corner soon, I might be able to get him!"

Keith could hear Lance's footfalls and heavy panting through his helmet. "Quiznack! I've lost sight of him!"

Keith growled. There's no telling where Lotor could go if no one could see him. He was just too unpredictable.

"Look out! He could be anywhere, so watch your back!"

Suddenly, Lotor ran out of the hallway to his left and turned to speed away from Keith. Keith was about five meters behind him, and he cursed his own slowness. He expected Lance to come hurtling down the same hall, but nothing else came out of it. One hall ahead, the boy came out, skidding to a halt, trying to figure out which way Lotor had gone, not seeing that Lotor was right behind him-

….

The world moved in slow motion.

Keith only saw Lotor's sword pierce through Lance's armor, only heard that _devil_ whisper a couple of words into Lance's ear, only felt the cry of pain from Lance as the sword was ripped from the paladin's body. Then Keith saw Lance's body sink to the floor, but couldn't hear himself as he cried Lance's name.

He raced for Lance, everything else forgotten. He wrapped his arms around Lance and cradled him like he had before everything went wrong.

The team had caught up, but when they gathered around to realize what had happened, they didn't exist to Keith. He couldn't hear anything, feel anything, or see anything but the boy he held. Then, his hearing became painfully clear as Lance spoke in a cracked, desperate voice.

"Not yet. Please."

Keith looked into Lance's eyes and saw nothing but fear and sadness before they glazed over and slowly… slowly… closed.

Forever.

"No." Keith whispered with a broken feeling in his body. "No, no, no, no Lance get up, this isn't funny, wake up you bastard, WAKE UP!" he screamed at the dead face of his friend. He shook and sobbed over Lance's limp body, bending over it in a protective position.

Suddenly, it slipped from his grasp and fell to the hard floor. The entire sight of it made Keith stop his tears and catch his breath. He jumped into a stand and immediately took after Lotor in a wild run, chasing the traitor with all his might.

By the time he got to the hanger, a ship was already in the air, with Lotor in it. Keith chased it, even if it was impossible to reach, and threw his sword at it. It bounced off harmlessly, landing with a clatter. The ship flew out of the hanger, giving no thought to the wild-eyed boy chasing after it.

As the hanger doors closed, Keith ran up to them and pounded relentlessly. He began slamming his fist against the unforgiving metal, and when his hands started to bleed, he took to throwing his whole body against the wall, until he threw himself against it one last time, out of energy.

He sunk to the ground, his fists still clenched above him against the doors.

He roared a terrifying roar filled with anger and betrayal, but then it sunk into a cry of loneliness and pain. Tears rolled down his face like waterfalls, and his whole body was wracked with the sobs of his grief.

It wasn't fair.

It just wasn't fair.

 **A/N: OH MY GOSH-GI-DARN, THATS SUM BACKGROUND INFO.**

 **srry for being a lazy bum, im still in school, so i cant dedicate my life to this srry**


End file.
